California students pepper-sprayed

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The dozens of student protesters who were pepper-sprayed by police at a California community college weren't just angry about not getting into a meeting of school trustees.

They were fuming about a new Santa Monica College plan that would let students who did not get into a needed, high-demand course take the class anyway, but only if they paid hundreds of dollars more.

On Tuesday night, the emotions boiled over at the meeting.

And a day later the state agency that oversees the state's community colleges called on the attorney general to judge whether the plan was legal. Agency officials also called for the college to temporarily halt the program.

The college has said the summer pilot program is an attempt to create new ways to fund some popular state-required classes in an era of declining state education aid.

Critics say the plan will create a caste system favoring wealthy students and runs contrary to the idea of community colleges as a gateway into the middle class.

"Students feel they are being backed into a corner. They feel like they have been left out of the discussion," said Joshua Scuteri, a student trustee. "The feeling on campus is it's like the Alamo."

The school is one of the state's largest two-year colleges with an enrollment of roughly 30,000 students. About 1,100 classes out of 7,430 have been slashed since 2008.

As a result, students can't get the courses they need to graduate. They have held protests before but wanted to be heard and seen by trustees Tuesday night, students said. They were upset because only a handful of them were allowed into the meeting.

When their request to move the meeting to a larger venue was denied, they began to enter the room, said David Steinman, an environmental advocate.

The clash, parts of which were videotaped and posted online, occurred in a narrow hallway packed with shouting protesters. The videos show a chaotic scene with some struggles between them and police.

Two officers were apparently backed up against a wall, and began using force to keep the students out of the room. Steinman said both officers used pepper spray. "People were gasping and choking," he said.

Jasmine Delgado, vice president of the college's Associated Students, said she tried to restore calm shortly before officers used the pepper spray.

Delgado said she was pushed to the ground by an officer where she landed on her right arm. She said she suffered a contusion and her arm was in a sling Wednesday. "I think this shows how much students are willing to go through for their education," she said.

School officials said an overflow room was available to students, but that the demonstrators wanted to get inside the main meeting space.

In a statement, college President Chui Tsang said that despite people engaging in unlawful conduct, including setting off fire alarms, police made no arrests. He said the college was investigating the incident.

Video of a pepper spray incident at University of California, Davis, in November drew worldwide attention when an officer doused a row of student protesters with pepper spray as they sat passively. It became a rallying point for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

California Community Colleges system Chancellor Jack Scott spoke with Tsang, asking that the plan be put on hold, but Tsang was noncommittal, said Paul Feist, the vice chancellor.

"The chancellor is concerned about the impact of a two-tiered system on low-income students," he said.

The school has said its lawyers have concluded that the plan was legal.

By NIGEL DUARA

Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. — A document uncovered by attorneys for soldiers sickened at an Iraqi water treatment plant shows a military contractor knew a deadly toxin was being stockpiled and used in massive quantities at the facility, despite the contractor's repeated denials that it had knowledge of the toxin's presence until soldiers fell ill.

The document, an environmental assessment that Kellogg, Brown and Root completed for the U.S. government before the invasion of Iraq, was finalized in January 2003 — a full five months before the company said it had found evidence of the toxic material, sodium dichromate.

The documents show KBR knew Iraqis ordered 8 million pounds of sodium dichromate to keep pipes from corroding, and that the company expected lax environmental maintenance and "lamentable" conditions.

Sodium dichromate is an anticorrosive compound that can cause skin and breathing problems and cancer.

The Oregon National Guard soldiers, suffering from myriad respiratory problems, migraines and lung issues, sued KBR in June 2009.

A complaint in the lawsuit first obtained by The Associated Press and filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Oregon alleges KBR knew about the presence of sodium dichromate at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant months before the date they originally gave in testimony and depositions.

U.S. forces reached the water treatment plant in late March or early April 2003.

The company acknowledged the presence of sodium dichromate in July 2003.

The soldiers say they only learned of the alleged misrepresentation in late February, after a Department of Defense inspector general investigation directed them to a 2002 KBR assessment of the plant.